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Henry Ford III Elected to Ford Foundation's Board of Trustees

Monday, February 25, 2019

Henry Ford III Elected to Ford Foundation's Board of Trustees

The Ford Foundation has elected Henry Ford III as a board member. He is the great-grandson of Edsel Ford, who created the foundation in 1936. It is the first time in more than 40 years that a Ford family member serves as a trustee.

Ford, 38, will serve a six-year term. He credited Darren Walker, the foundation’s president, with "keeping an open line" to the family since Walker began in his position in 2013. "Ever since Darren became president, he’s done a really good job reaching out to the family," Ford said in an interview. "He’s given us updates and kept us involved in the foundation."

The last Ford to serve as a trustee, Henry Ford III’s grandfather Henry Ford II, orchestrated the foundation’s expansion into international affairs, a move to New York City in 1953, and divestment in holdings of Ford stock all before a public disagreement on the grant maker’s direction, which led to his resignation in 1977. Upon stepping down, he said that after 33 years as a trustee, the foundation had become a "cause of frustration, and sometimes plain irritation," largely because the grant maker had become critical of capitalism which was the source of the family’s fortune and which funded the foundation...